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One thing I get asked a lot, is why I care so much about nested virtualization and the use case of such technology.

To understand nested virtualization we first need to look at traditional server virtualization.

Traditional Virtualization overview

In a traditional virtualization solution, the physical hardware is abstracted and presented to a guest operating system. The Virtual Machines (VM) are guests of the physical server and communicates with the physical hardware via the hypervisor.

Image 1

One physical server, hosts isolated Guest VMs

To provide high availability to the virtualizations solution we add clustering, Storage Area Networks (SAN) and duplicate of dependent peripheral configurations like network hardware and its configuration etc. The physical servers and attached configurations becomes a virtual datacenter that hosts the virtual machines. If we transition from one hypervisor vendor to another we need to convert the workload VMs to fit the new hypervisor. The conversion is sometimes a time-consuming and an expensive job that involves a lot of coordination.

This is something that we nowadays are quite familiar with.

Why nested virtualization then?

What if you wanted a copy of that configuration for testing or development purposes? How do you evolve and enhance your implementation? Do you have the possibility to test changes without impact to your production environment?

To install a virtual datacenter involves quite a lot of hardware that can be expensive and hard to move around.

You might need different configurations, developers for instance often have the need for many isolated environments with different settings. Building physical environments for each could be really expensive.

Nested Virtualization overview

In a nested virtualization solution, the physical hardware is abstracted and presented to a guest hypervisor VM as configurations. The guest hypervisor VM is a guest of the physical server.

The Guest VMs within the Guest hypervisor is unaware of the fact that the hypervisor is virtual and acts in the same way as if the hypervisor was installed in physical hardware.

To provide high availability to the virtualizations solution we use the same setup as in a traditional virtualization solution but we are able to emulate quite a lot of the periferal solutions such as SAN, Networks etc

Further possibilities with nested hypervisors

In a cloud solution, if a cloud vendor supports nested virtualization the format of the workload VM becomes irrelevant.

In a DevOps world the need to quickly build entire configurations becomes even more necessary. No more we can’t afford to have an expensive test environment J

What If we could build those configurations in Azure! the possibilities involved becomes mind blowing.

Microsoft Nested Virtualization

Microsoft has released a preview of nested virtualization in Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 10565

At the moment only Windows 10, Hyper-V is possible to nest but I expect that to change in the near future. Imagine the Host Hypervisor in Image 2 as a Nano Server with Hyper-V. The Guest Workload VMs as Docker/Windows Containers and full OS VMs. The future looks really interesting J

How to get started

How do I start exploring the possibilities with nested virtualization?

In my lab I installed a Windows 10 host hypervisor with two Windows 10 Guest Hypervisors. Within each guest hypervisor I installed a Guest VM workload with Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3

I tried to get the nesting to work in Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 3 as well but I get an error message in the event log and the Hyper V Service wont start. “This device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device. (Code 31)”

In a PPT from Microsoft https://t.co/ZqCkN16MIr the roadmap for System Center is reviled. The Windows Server 2016 Technical Previews has previously been released at the same time as System Center, so I hope I we will see Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 4 in November as well.

There are currently 274 282371 Ignite Sessions listed in the Catalog and I think there will be more then a thousand sessions when the conference kicks of on Star Wars Day, May the 4:th.

So back to the Content Catalog with that huge amount of sessions there needs to be a great way to sort out the sessions. The session catalog of Microsoft Ignite is the best I have seen so far.

The catalog is dynamic in multiple dimensions and will automatically react to the settings you define. The result is a personalized list of sessions.

The Search Session Catalog function gives you the ability to search the entire catalog for keywords.

A quick look in the Products list displays 0 Azure Pack sessions but the search returns two hits at the moment. So don’t be alarmed if the topic you are looking for isn’t displayed, do a search for it. 🙂

Dynamic filters

On the left side are the filters sorted into six areas, Audiences, Topics, Formats, Products, Themes and Levels

Simply click the area/areas of interest and the list will dynamically change to display the sessions associated with your selection.

Lets say you want to learn the best practices in upgrading SQL Server. You click SQL Server in the Products section, Best Practices in the Formats section and Level 400 in the Levels section. That will direct you to the session “Upgrading and Migrating Microsoft SQL Server”

Each area displays several related categories

The Audiences area displays the sub categories, IT Influencers and Implementers, Enterprise Developers, IT Decision Makers and Architects

Level 400;
this is the expert session often with detailed material. Assumes a deep level of technical knowledge and experience and a detailed, thorough understanding of topic. Provides expert-to-expert interaction and coverage of specialized topics.

This concludes my initial explanation of the Microsoft Ignite Catalog. I will continue this exploration when future functions are reviled. The schedule building process very much involves knowledge of the content catalog.

Ahh I also found a currently hidden section in the content catalog when I poked around. The hidden section called Roles and I expect it to be reviled soon, perhaps in combination with the schedule builder function of the catalog. The list contains sub categories that will add further filtering options.